In our opinion, those are not the words of someone taking a short
leave who is confident he will be back at the company soon (or
ever).

Rather, in our opinion, they read like the tragic, heartfelt
sentiments of someone who thinks he might never be coming back.

Importantly,
last time Steve wrote a memo to Apple staff about taking a
medical leave, his tone and wording were quite different. Then,
he said he would be gone "until June" and said he "look[ed]
forward to seeing all of you this summer."

We certainly hope that Steve is okay and will return to Apple
this time as quickly as he did last time. But we have a bad
feeling about this.